T. S. Eliot Quotes

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.

In a world of fugitives, the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away.

The awful daring of a moment's surrender which an age of prudence
can never retract.
by this, and only this, we have existed.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.

I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.

and now you live dispersed on ribbon roads, And no man knows or cares who is his neighbor Unless his neighbor makes too much disturbance, But all dash to and fro in motor cars, Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere.

These modern productions are all very well, But there's nothing to equal, from what I hear tell, That moment of mystery When I made history As Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.

You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey's end.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends...

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood — Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And a hundred visions and revisions

No I am not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be
Am an attendant lord one that will do
To swell a progress start a scene or two
Advise the prince no doubt an easy tool
Deferential glad to be of use
Politic cautious and meticulous
Full of high sentence but a bit obtuse
At times indeed almost ridiculous — Almost at times the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind Do I dare to eat a peach
I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us and we drown.

The difference between the present and the past is that the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past’s awareness of itself cannot show.

The work of creation is never without travail